NASA invites 150 Twitter followers to lunar launch

September 2, 2011
By Veronica McGregor and Stephanie L. Schierholz

This artist's concept of an astronaut bird on the moon illustrates the space enthusiast community on Twitter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA has invited 150 followers of the agency's Twitter accounts to a two-day launch Tweetup Sept. 7-8. The Tweetup is expected to culminate in the launch of the twin moon-bound GRAIL spacecraft aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The launch is targeted for 5:37 a.m. PDT (8:37 a.m. EDT) on Sept. 8. The two GRAIL spacecraft will fly in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail from crust to core. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about the moon and provide scientists with a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

Tweetup participants were selected from more than 800 people who registered online. They will share their Tweetup experiences with their followers through the social networking site Twitter.

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA invited 150 lucky people to a behind-the-scenes perspective from the press site at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the final launch of space shuttle Endeavour on Friday, April 29. The ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's twin lunar probes have arrived in Florida to begin final preparations for a launch in late summer. The two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory spacecraft (Grail) were shipped from Lockheed Martin ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's twin lunar probes  GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B - completed their final inspections and were weighed one final time at the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Fla., on Tuesday. The two ...

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